Chapter Twenty-Two

in the instant between blood and breath

the terrible functionless whole

the knowledge of death, and time the wicked thief,

for all, a celebration and a burial.

From In the Crevice of Time by Josephine Jacobsen

Great swarming shards of black hatred pierced my mind like rods of steel burning through bone. I screamed in agony and my voice was drowned out by a legion of many. Fear jackknifed its way through my limbs and they grew numb with the icy chill of destitute dreams, lost hopes and inconceivable desperation and I knew I’d walked this Dark road before.

Misty, ethereal corpses spun erratically like blinking white ink spots before my eyes; each one bore faces in various stages of rot and decay. Faces that screamed. Faces that cried. Faces that spewed their wrath of anger and blasphemies. Each one decried their fate.

I gasped, the air a heavy weight in my lungs while I struggled to rise to my feet. I blinked to ease the sludge of Darkness seeping through my mind and two worlds swam across my vision. Before me, the great hall where Jirvel and her mad affair of macabre hopes to annihilate all of those I loved and cared for. Beyond, the Darkness where the wayfaring wandered, seeking their souls, spending their eternity in the Shadow Lands for their corruption and their sins.

And I, who now stood between.

Somehow, Jirvel had found my father. Or my father had found her. Either way, one was using the other, both deranged and vying for their own Dark way. Together they had sent me between the realms. A witness and a watcher, trapped in this sphere of Darkness where I must choose to watch those I loved die, or walk the Shadow Lands praying I found a way to save us all.

It was in this conundrum that I recalled Maebe’s words. “Into you great secrets now hide. The Way has been chosen and all must abide. Darkness and Death call out in the night. Steal they the Light when sleeping dogs lie. The sins of the Chosen—forgiven they must. Life unto Death—the Light you must trust.”

“The Light I must trust. The Light I must trust,” she said. Ugh! Fucking Witch! Tell me how? How? When I’m stuck in this damn Darkness? How the hell am I to save anyone if I can’t get myself out of this shit? If it wasn’t for me none of them would even be trapped here in the first place! I couldn’t help but rail at myself when everyone I loved was trapped beyond my reach. What good were all of these Tells I’d taken into myself if I didn’t know what they all were and didn’t know how to use them. I hadn’t been given enough time!

The sins of the Chosen—forgiven they must… the words whispered through my mind in Maebe’s eerie, singsong voice. Okay, so maybe this wasn’t entirely fault. I mean, I didn’t make Jirvel become such an evil, sadistic bitch. And, I hadn’t made her kill all of those Necromancers or kidnap and torture Kieran and the others – just the thought of Kieran made my heart hurt. Had she killed him? Truly killed him? Gods! Why was this happening?

“He’ll never let you rule,” I suddenly shouted unable to hold back my anger any longer.

“What?” Jirvel questioned. My anger began to clear my mind a bit and as Jirvel turned toward me, the debauchery of events I hadn’t even noticed going on in the room around me suddenly came into focus.

Someone had picked up Lucien’s limp body off the floor and placed it on the slab next to Kieran’s. Jirvel’s little flunkies were in the process of stripping him bare. It seemed another offering was in the preparations stage.

“When you set him free, he’ll only kill you and all that you have,” I told her. “All that you have done will be for nothing.”

She smiled, a slim baring of teeth behind the garish red of her bright lips. I wanted to yank her fangs out with my bare hands.

“Your father has sworn I will rule beside him. We will be equals and rule the Darkness as one.”

I couldn’t help but snort at that one. Bitch was truly wack if she thought he was going to share his power with her. Yet, her words made me wonder. “Is that why you killed all of the Necromancers? To set him free?”

“All right, little half-breed. I guess there is no harm in indulging you, since you’re about to die. I see no reason I can’t share a bit of our glorious Dark plans,” she stated. There was nothing in her eyes but pure evil delight. Yeah, even death can’t cure stupid.

“It is written that seven children of The Way who control the dead will set him free. Add an offering of true death from a creature whose soul was once pure,” she stated, trailing her fingers down Kieran’s bare chest, “and the blood of the Chosen and The God of the Moon will rule the Darkness forever.” She smiled.

Yep, it was official. Definitely dead and utterly stupid. But I wondered where she got the Words of The Way from. I only knew one person…Modgav.

Another death for another time.

“Quite the plan if you can pull it off,” I told her, not even trying to keep the sarcasm from my voice.

“Oh, I’m quite sure I can pull it off.”

“Tell me,” I asked. “You had the four Necromancers killed, right? And Lady Twilla was five?”

“I killed them.” She nodded, obviously pleased with her handy work.

“I take it Fred the Zombie was Necromancer six?”

“Quite right, my dear half-breed.”

“So who’s the seventh harbinger?

“Haven’t figured that out?” she asked, picking up another ornate dagger to match the one she’d already thrust into Kieran’s chest.

I stared at her cold, dead eyes for a minute, trying to figure out her game when it struck me. “Lucien,” I whispered. “But you already have his soul. Why not just give it to my father?” The wheels of an idea were spinning.

She glared at me, but did not immediately respond.

“You need Kieran and Lucien to willingly give you their souls, don’t you? That’s why you haven’t burned Kieran to dust.”

If she could have burned me on the spot, I think she would have. “Oh, I think they’ll give them to me.” The spark of vile morbidity flickered in her eyes.

I knew then exactly what she intended, and what I needed to do. See, the thing that Jirvel needed to remember was that when you play in the dark with mad devils and those devils have daughters…well, let’s just say there are several ways to watch a body burn. Me, I was definitely looking forward to this pyre.

I took a deep breath and did two things: I closed my eyes, opened myself to all my powers of Light and Darkness and Called my backup; envisioning each of them as I left them, fully armed and war ready. And like heat shimmers in the sun, Kieran’s Vampires from the Mound, Markus, Ivy, Berg, Jet and Prism in the shape of a huge, multi-colored, spike-tailed, long-toothed dragon appeared before us in the great hall.

Then I stepped into the Shadow Lands, knowing that I had mere moments to retrieve Kieran’s soul before Jirvel forced him to give it to her, and to find and save my Gimlit.